


I'm Waiting For It

by greenbucket



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: F/F, Parenthood, Post-Divorce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 20:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12239781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenbucket/pseuds/greenbucket
Summary: An evening in the bar midway through Andover's Parents' Weekend.





	I'm Waiting For It

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a text post on tumblr that has since been deleted I think which said nursey's mom x shitty's mom. Great idea!
> 
> Title from Lorde's _Green Light_.

Helen isn’t planning on getting wasted, not really. Just on getting tipsy enough to take the edge off, to push away the memory of the day until she’s home safe in Cambridge in a few days and can cry about it all she wants.

Even if she wanted to get really, truly drunk it’s not like there are many places near to Andover for someone to do so that aren’t places just too sketchy – purposefully so, for the sake of her son and his classmates to get drunk underage – for her to go to alone. She has to be back for day two of parents visiting weekend tomorrow, too, and it would look bad to turn up hungover.

That doesn’t mean she doesn’t push the parameter of ‘tipsy’ to the absolute limit, alone at a table in a nearly empty bar two streets over from the hotel. She forgot to bring a book to read, or even the local paper, and her phone holds too many concerned texts from friends back home. _Call me later x_ and _don’t hesitate if you need a shoulder_. When she’s in a better mind she knows she’ll appreciate them but right now it rankles.

The bar is dull without something to occupy her, the drinks taking too long to take effect even as she knocks them back and the music low enough that Helen is struggling to hear the words. Time to get her hearing checked, perhaps with her next eye test. Age feels heavy on her for a moment before it passes again.

Helen watches as a woman, also alone, orders an ice water. Her voice is low and firm enough to carry and she taps her fingers on the bar as she waits, looking around the room.

She seems familiar, dressed just a little too high end for the flavour of the bar they’re in like Helen is and her purse larger than it needs to be. She must be another parent from Andover staying in the area; the bag is probably still filled with emergency wipes and band aids, scrunched receipts and about seven half gone packets of chewing mints. Helen knows that her bag is – but maybe that’s just her. Holding on to the past, when her family was new and young and together.

This woman looks put together and _held_ together, whereas when Helen looks in the mirror she can only conclude she looks put together and about thirty seconds from her hair unravelling from its bun, from her seams and the soles of her shoes giving up the ghost for good, all her unmarked papers collapsing on her from the sky.

The woman looks over at Helen and Helen raises a hand in greeting, even though she’s still unsure if this woman even is another Andover parent. It’s either the alcohol having more effect than she thought or that she’s still in polite mode but she supposes there’s no harm in making a new friend either. The woman smiles in response and comes over with her lone water. Helen takes a moment to wonder if she should feel embarrassed about her array of alcoholic drinks on the table in front of her but then discards the idea; what else do people come to bars to do, after all?

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” the woman says, taking her seat.

Helen isn’t sure whether or not to be affronted and so asks, “Why’s that?”

When the women smiles, embarrassed, she’s abruptly human. Not so put together that she can’t misstep with her speaking, not so put together that she becomes cold and unwelcoming like so many of the people Helen finds herself surrounded with these days. It’s a relief, attractive, and Helen feels herself let her guard down a little.

“Not like that!” she insists, “Oh God, let me start again. Hi, it’s great to meet you. You’re Helen, Shitty’s mom, right?”

Helen thinks for a moment, very distinctly, _who in the fuck is Shitty?_ before recalling a phone call last week wherein he’d casually dropped that that was what the kids called him now. His father’s father’s name had been terrible from the start and Helen had always stood by that so it’s no loss to her for him to go by something else.

“That’s me. Sorry, I’m not sure who…?”

“Marcia. My son’s a couple of years behind yours. Derek Nurse? They’re on the hockey team together?”

Helen recalls Shitty saying something about a new defenseman on the team, doesn’t recall if he said he was good or bad. She recognises Marcia now, though, from the little tour group they’d been stuck in all day. Assured air but nervous when asking questions, dressed well with make-up that tastefully compliments her skin tone but tacky, gas station-style charms hanging from her phone case.

“Oh,” she says. “Yes, of course, I’ve heard lots about him. How’s he finding Andover?”

Marcia takes a sip of her water, makes a so-so gesture with her head. “You know. I think he enjoys it, plenty of funding for extracurriculars and he’s making some good friends, but.” She shrugs.

“Sad to have him away from home?” Helen asks. It’s the most common complaint among other parents.

“No,” Marcia says. “I mean yes, obviously, I’d love if he wasn’t away from home. He’s only a child and his sister’s already at college. But I travel a lot for work and so does my hu– my ex-husband, and they’ve both always been independent, so we’re all used to it. It’s just, well. All this old money shit, you know?”

Helen blinks, taken aback by the straightforwardness of it. “Yeah. Pretty exhausting.”

“Stop me if I’m completely wrong on this, but you know what I mean, right? This parents weekend has just been all about how old the buildings are and how many old white donors the school has and all that crap, but they aren’t telling us about what they’re teaching or how it’s being taught, or how the kids are doing emotionally. Derek’s not going to tell me everything and I thought all this money would mean he’s in good hands but now I’m worrying it’s all just a front, not that I thought it wasn’t but today was just really worrying.” Marcia takes a long pull of her water, the ice clattering against the sides of the glass.

“It sounds like you’re prioritising the right things to me,” Helen says. “What they’re teaching academically and emotionally matters, the environment the pupils are in all day matters.”

“I know my priorities are right,” Marcia replies promptly. “I just had higher hopes for this school, God knows why. I’m sure it will be fine but– old white money, you know?”

“I could write to the governors for you,” Helen offers because she is old white money, even if it’s less so than her ex-husband and a lot of the Andover crowd, and that has clout.

Marcia shakes her head. “No. I don’t know. Maybe. Let me think. I just wanted to get it out. I was just going to stew here and then go to bed but you’re here and I figured you’d be willing to listen and you’d get some of it as a mother. I would’ve vented at Derek’s dad if he’d been able to make it but here we are. Anyway, sorry.”

“Hey, my ex-husband who’s on trial for accounting fraud still managed to make it this weekend, just so he could tell me I’m a bad mother and pretend he gives a shit about our son, probably because it’ll look good for his case,” Helen says because all those drinks are finally starting to hit and she’s just stepping over the line into drunk. It feels good to get it out, too, and she’s always believed in letting emotions be expressed. It’s healthy. Her and Marcia can have a bonding venting session in this bar.

Marcia laughs, loud and startled. It makes her look even more human, the way her eyes are dancing with a shocked delight. “Oh shit,” she says, looking like she might be biting down on a smile. “I mean sorry. That’s terrible, I’m so sorry to hear that.”

Helen finds herself trying not to smile too because when it’s put that bluntly, it really is a clusterfuck, isn’t it? How did she get into this situation? She has a PhD, she should have known better than to marry such an asshole. A _businessman_ , too.

“Don’t worry about it, you can laugh,” Helen says and laughs herself. “It’s a mess.”

Marcia just smiles, a little wry. Her foot nudges Helen’s under the table just a little. “At least he’s an ex, right?”

“Should’ve done it years ago,” Helen says, bitter, because all those years wasted with that man. All that pandering to his stupid values, shoving Toni Morrison at her own child in the hope it could counteract some of it (and thanking whatever higher power, just the other day, when he’d asked for her recommendations on gender studies works).

Marica shrugs. “Me too, probably. Not that my husband was anything so bad as yours,” she continues at Helen’s look, “He’s a lovely guy, really great. There just wasn’t anything there anymore. Maybe neither of us made the effort, I don’t know, maybe that’s just how these things go. At least we can still be friendly, he can still be there for the kids.”

“At least he didn’t commit fraud.”

“Exactly,” Marcia laughs. “God, look at me blabbing on. I’m not even drunk.”

“I am, so no worries,” Helen assures her. “Would you like a drink? I’ll buy.”

Marcia pauses and Helen realises the question came out heavier, flirtier than it had sounded in her head. It’s been years since it’s even been an option. She doesn't want to backtrack. She waits.

“Sure,” Marcia says finally. “Just a gin and tonic, thanks.”

When Helen looks back for a moment as she walks up to the bar, Marcia is watching her go. She doesn’t look away even when she notices Helen noticing. It makes Helen’s heart race to know she isn’t misreading the situation, that she was the one to actually initiate this, and she turns back quickly, hands sweaty like she’s a teenager all over again, to order from the bartender.

“We can’t get too drunk,” Marcia says firmly when Helen returns with the drink. “Day two of parents’ weekend tomorrow, remember? Our children are relying on us, your horrible ex is waiting to pounce, the tour continues.”

“I know,” Helen says and she swaps the gin and tonic in her hand for Marcia’s half-finished water and takes a sip. “I’m cutting myself off here. We’ll just be slightly buzzed and we’ll wake up fine for another amazing day of fun tomorrow.”

“You think I’m going to get buzzed off one gin and tonic?”

Helen lets herself notice the details about Marcia that she’s been ignoring so far: the bump in her nose, the strength in the set of her shoulders, the way her mouth closes around the straw of her drink. When she checks, it looks like maybe Marcia is letting herself notice things back.

Helen isn’t sure where this will all go – they’re still on parents’ weekend, after all, and they’re both recent divorcees whose children are friends, and she hasn’t been with a woman in years – but that doesn’t mean it’s something not worth pursuing. _Fuck it,_ she thinks.

“Would you be able to make time for more than one drink?” she asks.

Marcia smiles. She has laugh lines around her mouth, at the corners of her eyes. “I think I could do that.”


End file.
